Exploring Freedom In Being A Gamer…

I don't know about you but I had a pretty amazing Fourth of
July. I spent the day with family doing all sorts of fun stuff like swimming at
the lake, building a bonfire, shooting off fireworks and eating some tasty food
like hamburgers and s'mores. The day is finally winding down and as the last
few neighbors fire off the remaining fireworks they have, I'm sitting here
looking at the Game Informer website and preparing to start my own blog. I see
the staff came up with a clever idea of having the editors write a piece about
exploring freedom in a game of their choice. Nifty. I like it. Think I'll even
use that idea and put my own spin on it.

Exploring Freedom In Being A Gamer...

For many of us, today is a special day because it is celebrates
the day we gained our independence and set us on a course that would deliver us
where we are today - a free nation that protects our rights to life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness. So many others around the world will never have
this opportunity. They will never know what it is like to truly be free.

It's easy to take what we have for granted. I know I'm guilty
of this even though I try to recognize how fortunate I truly am. I could tell
you many of the different reasons why I think I (or we) have it pretty good,
but I should probably limit it to the realm of video games...since this is a
video game website after all.

How fortunate are we...as gamers.

Well, personally speaking, I think we're pretty fortunate,
and have the freedom to play what we want on the platform we want.

Platforms

Besides the big three (Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony), we
have a number of other options for alternative platform solutions. Nintendo and
Sony both have rather popular portable gaming devices, while most of us who
enjoy giving Valve all of our money for Steam sales are running this on a Microsoft
powered PC. It doesn't stop there though. There are also a number of other technological
solutions, including the Steam Box, Ouya, and who knows what else is being
built as I type this. The nice thing about the freedom of being a gamer is I
can choose any of these platforms...or several of them if that's what I prefer.

Games

When I first got into gaming, there weren't any genres.
Partly because there weren't enough games similar enough in design and gameplay
to categorize them as similar. Over the years as more games were developed and
released, genres were formed. Today, I have so many choices available to me the
hard part if figuring out what I want to play. And the games we have available -
they're typically never censored and very rarely ever banned. We pretty much
get to play anything and everything. This isn't true for gamers around the
world. The nice thing about the freedom of being a gamer is I have access to a
multitude of games spanning a number of different genres at my disposal, and
nothing really prohibits me from enjoying the ones that interest me the most.

Social Engagement

Social Engagement has radically evolved over the years, but
gaming has long demonstrated elements of a being a group activity. Whether you're
playing a single player or multi player game, there's very likely a certain
amount of conversation that occurs with someone in your life about the game you're
playing. The freedom of meeting people, building friendships and developing
bonds, especially with people you wouldn't necessarily associate with, should
illustrate what it means to be gamer with the freedom to mingle with others
without the fear of being ostracized.

Individuality

Gaming is a lot of different things for a lot of different
people, but one of the truly unique and special things about being a gamer is
it allows us to sort of imagine ourselves as the characters we're representing.
It empowers us to be who or what we want, even if it is in a virtual make
believe world.

When I consider what it means, "exploring freedom in being a
gamer", I envision how amazing it is to live in a world where we are free to
choose what we want to play, what we want to play it on, who we want to play it
with, and how we want to be viewed while we're playing.